Irish language in Northern Ireland

thumb|400px|The proportion of respondents in the 2011 census aged 3 and above who stated that they can speak Irish

The Irish language () is, since 2022, an official language in Northern Ireland. The main dialect spoken there is Ulster Irish (Gaeilge or Gaeilg Uladh). Protection for the Irish language in Northern Ireland stems largely from the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

In the 2021 census, Irish was the main language of 0.3% of the population aged 3 and up, an increase from 0.2% in the previous survey,

while 12.4% of that population had some ability in Irish, also an increase from previous census results.

History

Language in Gaelic Ireland

As in other parts of Ireland, Irish was the main language in the region of present-day Northern Ireland for most of its recorded history. The historic influence of the Irish language in Northern Ireland can be seen in many place names, for example the name of Belfast first appears in the year 668, and the Lagan even earlier ("Logia", Ptolemy's Geography 2,2,8). The Plantation of Ulster led to a decline in Gaelic culture through forcible expulsions of native Irish in favour of English and Scottish colonists. The Irish language, of course, was part of this culture – and while some Scottish settlers were Scots-Gaelic speakers, English was made widespread by the plantation. Despite the plantation Irish continued to be spoken in non-planted areas until the mass immigration in the 19th century caused by economic factors.

Irish Revival in Northern Ireland

Intellectuals in Belfast took an antiquarian interest in Irish-language culture towards the end of the 18th century, and an Irish-language magazine Bolg an tSolair was published in 1795. The Ulster Gaelic Society was founded in 1830. Attitudes among the Anglican and Presbyterian middle class, however, changed in the second half of the 19th century as the Gaelic Revival began being associated with support for Home Rule or Irish Republicanism. The English-born MP for South Londonderry, Thomas Lea proposed an amendment to the draft of the second Home Rule Bill that would have prevented the passing of laws which would increase Irish language use in state schools, legal courts and other public spheres. A branch of the Gaelic League was founded in Belfast in 1895 with a non-sectarian and widely based membership, but the decline in Irish as a first language continued.

Irish was in sharp decline throughout the whole of Ireland from the mid-1800s. From the late 1600s and early 1700s, the Church of Ireland made some attempts to revive the declining Irish language. The church printed Bibles and Prayer Books in Irish, and some churches, and some Protestant clergymen like William King of Dublin, held services in the language. However, the English language had been the language of learning and the Roman Catholic Church continued to use Ecclesiastical Latin for Mass and English in sermons. English was the language of the industrial east of the island, and Irish started to become confined to the more rural west. The proportion of Irish speakers had fallen from about half of the population in 1800 to 23% by 1851, and with only about a third of these speaking it exclusively.

By the 1860s, of all the Roman Catholic seminaries, only St Jarlath's in Tuam was teaching in Irish. The Roman Catholic Church had, at that time, desired to "stamp out any lingering, semi-pagan remnants", which included the Irish language. Some, like Sir William Wilde in 1852, blamed the Catholic Church for the quick decline and was "shocked" by the rapid decline of both the language and Gaelic customs after the Famine.

The Irish-language movement in Northern Ireland after 1921 responded to a lack of establishment support by pursuing a self-help social and recreational movement aimed at preserving Ulster Irish (an issue which had split the Belfast Gaelic League in 1911). By 1923, only one branch of the Gaelic League was left in operation in Northern Ireland, but from a handful of branches in 1926 the number of branches peaked at 182 in 1946. In contrast to the perception of the Irish Free State's policy of preserving areas of Irish-speaking countryside, activists in Northern Ireland concentrated on ensuring Irish could survive in urban contexts, organising trips to Irish-speaking areas to bolster urban enthusiasm.

From the early years of the Northern Ireland government, education in Irish was marginalised. The number of primary schools teaching Irish was halved between 1924 and 1927, and numbers studying Irish as an extra subject fell from 5531 to 1290 between 1923 and 1926. The subsidy for Irish as an extra subject was abolished in 1934.

The last speakers of varieties of Irish native to what is now Northern Ireland died in the 20th century. Irish as spoken in Counties Down and Fermanagh were the first to die out, but native speakers of varieties spoken in the Glens of Antrim and the Sperrin Mountains of County Tyrone and County Londonderry survived into the 1950s and 1970s respectively, whilst the Armagh dialect survived until the 1930s or '40s. Varieties of Irish indigenous to the territory of Northern Ireland finally became extinct when the last native speaker of Rathlin Irish died in 1985. Séamus Bhriain Mac Amhlaigh, who died in 1983, was reportedly the last native-speaker of Antrim Irish. A wealth of recordings and stories told by Mac Amhlaigh, however, were recorded before his death by researchers from Queen's University in Belfast.

At the same time, The Troubles exacerbated the politicisation of the Irish language in Northern Ireland. Many republicans in Northern Ireland, including former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, learned Irish while in prison. Furthermore, co-operative housing scheme in West Belfast aimed at creating an urban neo-Gaeltacht opened in 1969 in Shaw's Road.

To lend support for this effort during the early 1980s, Dublin-based Connaught Irish Modernist poet Máirtín Ó Direáin chose to risk both crossing what was still a "hard border" and the danger of falling victim to the ongoing paramilitary violence by Ulster Loyalists during The Troubles. Ó Direáin travelled to Northern Ireland and gave a poetry reading at the Cumann Chluain Ard, an urban language revival club in the Gaeltacht Quarter of West Belfast.

The Belfast Irish dialect, according to Louis de Paor, has even developed a "street slang", which been used in the poetry of Gearóid Mac Lochlainn and other radically innovative writers of Modern literature in Irish like him.

Simultaneously, Linda Ervine and the Turas organisation based in East Belfast continues to seek, with considerable success, to promote the Irish language revival among Ulster Protestants.

Status

thumb|Official administrative identity in English, Irish and Ulster Scots

Most Irish speakers in Ulster today speak the Donegal dialect of Ulster Irish.

Irish received official recognition in Northern Ireland for the first time in 1998 under the Good Friday Agreement, and status as an official language in 2022. A cross-border body known as Foras na Gaeilge was established to promote the language in both Northern Ireland and the Republic, taking over the functions of Bord na Gaeilge.

The British government in 2001 ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Irish (in respect only of Northern Ireland) was specified under Part III of the Charter, thus giving it a degree of protection and status comparable to the Scottish Gaelic in Scotland. This included a range of specific undertakings in relation to education, translation of statutes, interaction with public authorities, the use of placenames, media access, support for cultural activities and other matters (a lower level of recognition was accorded to the Ulster variety of Scots, under Part II of the Charter). Compliance with State obligations is assessed periodically by a Committee of Experts of the Council of Europe.

thumb|Bilingual welcome sign Newry

The Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 states: "It shall be the duty of the Department (of Education) to encourage and facilitate the development of Irish-medium education."

A question about the Irish language was asked until the 1911 census of Ireland, but after partition was not included in the Northern Ireland census until it was reintroduced in 1991, at the 1911 census, the six counties which would become Northern Ireland had 28,734 Irish speakers. According to the 1991 Census, 142,003 people (9.45% of the population) had some language skills ability in Irish.

{|class="wikitable sortable"

|+Knowledge of Irish by people over the age of 3 (percentage of population over the age of 3) for each census since 1991

!Census

!width=130|Speaks, reads, writes and understands Irish

!width=130|Speaks and reads but does not write Irish

!width=130|Speaks but does not read or write Irish

!width=130|Understands spoken Irish but cannot read, write or speak Irish

!width=130|Has other combination of skills

!width=130|Has some ability

!width=130|No knowledge of Irish

|1991||79,012 (5.26%) ||6,593 (0.44%) ||45,338 (3.02%) ||N/A||11,060 (0.74%) ||142,003 (9.45%) ||1,320,657 (87.90%)

|2001||75,125 (4.64%) ||7,183 (0.44%) ||24,536 (1.52%) ||36,479 (2.25%) ||24,167 (1.49%) ||167,490 (10.35%) ||1,450,467 (89.65%)

|2011||64,847 (3.74%) ||7,414 (0.43%) ||24,677 (1.42%) ||70,501 (4.06%)||17,459 (1.01%) ||184,898 (10.65%) ||1,550,813 (89.35%)

|2021||71,872 (3.91%) ||9,683 (0.53%) ||37,497 (2.04%) ||90,801 (4.94%) ||18,764 (1.02%) ||228,617 (12.45%) ||1,607,995 (87.55%)

Note:

{| class="wikitable sortable sticky-header-multi mw-collapsible"

|+ Detailed 2021 Census Results by County, Local District and Parliamentary Constituency

! rowspan=2 |United Kingdom Census 2021

! rowspan=2 |Total Population

! colspan=2 |Has Some Knowledge of Irish

! colspan=2 |Can Speak, Read, Write and Understand Spoken Irish

! colspan=2 |Speaks Irish Every Day

! colspan=2 |Main Home Language: Irish

! Total !! Percentage !! Total !! Percentage !! Total !! Percentage !! Total !! Percentage

|Northern Ireland||1,905,175||228,620||12.00%||71,871||3.77%||43,557||2.29%||5,970||0.31%

| colspan= 10|

! colspan=10 | By County

|Antrim||651,321||71,689||11.01%||23,732||3.64%||16,585||2.55%||3,011||0.46%

|Armagh||194,393||31,664||16.29%||9,803||5.04%||5,743||2.95%||564||0.29%

|Down||553,262||44,506||8.04%||12,978||2.35%||6,358||1.15%||723||0.13%

|Fermanagh||65,585||9,591||14.62%||2,703||4.12%||1,216||1.85%||138||0.21%

|Londonderry||252,231||36,424||14.44%||11,653||4.62%||6,833||2.71%||827||0.33%

|Tyrone||188,383||34,746||18.44%||11,002||5.84%||6,822||3.62%||707||0.38%

! colspan=10 | By Local Government District (since 2014)

|Antrim and Newtownabbey ||145,661||11,077||7.60%||3,433||2.36%||2,058||1.41%||245||0.17%

|Ards and North Down ||163,660||5,116||3.13%||1,231||0.75%||519||0.32%||36||0.02%

|Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon ||218,656||25,644||11.73%||7,882||3.60%||4,595||2.10%||429||0.20%

|Belfast ||345,417||51,583||14.93%||17,986||5.21%||13,110||3.80%||2,659||0.77%

|Causeway Coast and Glens ||141,743||13,698||9.66%||4,187||2.95%||2,284||1.61%||231||0.16%

|Derry City and Strabane ||150,756||23,172||15.37%||7,474||4.96%||4,133||2.74%||510||0.34%

|Fermanagh and Omagh ||116,812||20,066||17.18%||5,837||5.00%||3,166||2.71%||347||0.30%

|Lisburn and Castlereagh ||149,106||9,949||6.67%||3,062||2.05%||1,692||1.13%||231||0.15%

|Mid and East Antrim ||138,994||6,276||4.52%||1,616||1.16%||788||0.57%||46||0.03%

|Mid Ulster ||150,291||29,397||19.56%||9,544||6.35%||6,179||4.11%||682||0.45%

|Newry, Mourne and Down ||182,074||32,639||17.93%||9,620||5.28%||5,033||2.76%||553||0.30%

! colspan="10" |By Local Government District (1993-2013)

|Antrim ||57,178||5,606||9.80%||1,756||3.07%||995||1.74%||103||0.18%

|Ards ||81,911||2,314||2.83%||524||0.64%||222||0.27%||16||0.02%

|Armagh ||64,960||10,158||15.64%||3,207||4.94%||1,939||2.98%||210||0.32%

|Ballymena ||67,392||4,040||5.99%||1,058||1.57%||551||0.82%||35||0.05%

|Ballymoney ||31,631||2,449||7.74%||673||2.13%||288||0.91%||37||0.12%

|Banbridge ||51,447||4,095||7.96%||1,173||2.28%||596||1.16%||69||0.13%

|Belfast ||293,297||43,798||14.93%||15,294||5.21%||10,963||3.74%||2,192||0.75%

|Carrickfergus ||39,653||814||2.05%||200||0.50%||72||0.18%||4||0.01%

|Castlereagh ||70,092||4,950||7.06%||1,527||2.18%||695||0.99%||67||0.10%

|Coleraine ||58,878||4,217||7.16%||1,258||2.14%||588||1.00%||50||0.08%

|Cookstown ||39,611||6,786||17.13%||1,957||4.94%||1,224||3.09%||130||0.33%

|Craigavon ||104,278||13,452||12.90%||3,648||3.50%||2,168||2.08%||173||0.17%

|Derry ||110,439||17,323||15.69%||5,653||5.12%||3,131||2.84%||412||0.37%

|Down ||73,134||9,147||12.51%||2,676||3.66%||1,551||2.12%||171||0.23%

|Dungannon ||64,441||13,056||20.26%||4,469||6.94%||2,869||4.45%||296||0.46%

|Fermanagh ||64,140||9,657||15.06%||2,719||4.24%||1,224||1.91%||139||0.22%

|Larne ||31,949||1,422||4.45%||358||1.12%||165||0.52%||9||0.03%

|Limavady ||34,050||4,219||12.39%||1,317||3.87%||832||2.44%||85||0.25%

|Lisburn ||130,811||12,773||9.76%||4,225||3.23%||3,139||2.40%||631||0.48%

||Magherafelt ||47,301||9,712||20.53%||3,172||6.71%||2,110||4.46%||256||0.54%

|Moyle ||17,188||2,819||16.40%||939||5.46%||579||3.37%||60||0.35%

|Newry & Mourne ||105,839||22,901||21.64%||6,744||6.37%||3,350||3.17%||359||0.34%

|Newtownabbey ||88,485||5,473||6.19%||1,677||1.90%||1,062||1.20%||145||0.16%

|North Down ||82,076||2,808||3.42%||708||0.86%||301||0.37%||20||0.02%

|Omagh ||52,647||10,411||19.78%||3,118||5.92%||1,942||3.69%||208||0.40%

|Strabane ||40,318||5,849||14.51%||1,821||4.52%||1,002||2.49%||98||0.24%

! colspan="10" |By Parliamentary Constituency (2008-2023)

|Belfast East ||96,322||4,089||4.25%||1,172||1.22%||675||0.70%||125||0.13%

|Belfast North ||109,508||14,108||12.88%||5,414||4.94%||3,220||2.94%||507||0.46%

|Belfast South ||114,002||17,492||15.34%||6,046||5.30%||2,818||2.47%||387||0.34%

|Belfast West ||93,627||22,143||23.65%||8,084||8.63%||7,461||7.97%||1,755||1.87%

|East Antrim ||89,492||3,935||4.40%||1,029||1.15%||440||0.49%||40||0.04%

|East Londonderry ||99,714||9,416||9.44%||2,867||2.88%||1,554||1.56%||156||0.16%

|Fermanagh & South Tyrone||109,208||17,081||15.64%||5,147||4.71%||2,688||2.46%||275||0.25%

|Foyle ||103,652||16,342||15.77%||5,361||5.17%||2,998||2.89%||390||0.38%

|Lagan Valley ||112,708||5,644||5.01%||1,602||1.42%||882||0.78%||127||0.11%

|Mid Ulster ||106,285||22,130||20.82%||7,170||6.75%||4,739||4.46%||547||0.51%

|Newry & Armagh ||123,054||23,641||19.21%||7,276||5.91%||4,128||3.35%||451||0.37%

|North Antrim ||112,262||8,286||7.38%||2,387||2.13%||1,276||1.14%||111||0.10%

|North Down ||93,172||3,012||3.23%||746||0.80%||318||0.34%||21||0.02%

|South Antrim ||106,390||8,827||8.30%||2,868||2.70%||1,799||1.69%||237||0.22%

|South Down ||114,285||18,867||16.51%||5,438||4.76%||2,803||2.45%||316||0.28%

|Strangford ||93,668||3,365||3.59%||847||0.90%||355||0.38%||27||0.03%

|Upper Bann ||129,520||13,985||10.80%||4,274||3.30%||2,460||1.90%||195||0.15%

|West Tyrone ||92,990||16,259||17.48%||4,939||5.31%||2,944||3.17%||306||0.33%

! colspan="10" |By Parliamentary Constituency (Since 2024)

|Belfast East ||102,279||5,048||4.94%||1,494||1.46%||818||0.80%||140||0.14%

|Belfast North ||106,490||14,417||13.54%||4,725||4.44%||3,322||3.12%||529||0.50%

|Belfast South and Mid Down||119,550||17,258||14.44%||5,959||4.98%||2,772||2.32%||390||0.33%

|Belfast West ||103,180||22,741||22.04%||8,273||8.02%||7,606||7.37%||1,790||1.73%

|East Antrim ||96,954||4,291||4.43%||1,156||1.19%||486||0.50%||40||0.04%

|East Londonderry ||103,287||9,752||9.44%||2,967||2.87%||1,584||1.53%||159||0.15%

|Fermanagh & South Tyrone||111,790||16,798||15.03%||5,597||5.01%||3,002||2.69%||317||0.28%

|Foyle ||97,305||15,700||16.13%||5,176||5.32%||2,938||3.02%||387||0.40%

|Lagan Valley ||112,010||5,827||5.20%||1,679||1.50%||871||0.78%||96||0.09%

|Mid Ulster ||105,229||21,278||20.22%||6,935||6.59%||4,577||4.35%||512||0.49%

|Newry & Armagh ||111,747||21,597||19.33%||6,619||5.92%||3,766||3.37%||411||0.37%

|North Antrim ||103,831||7,919||7.63%||2,255||2.17%||1,230||1.18%||111||0.11%

|North Down ||97,900||3,137||3.20%||777||0.79%||330||0.34%||21||0.02%

|South Antrim ||106,441||8,513||8.00%||2,744||2.58%||1,685||1.58%||213||0.20%

|South Down ||105,240||17,632||16.75%||5,170||4.91%||2,640||2.51%||296||0.28%

|Strangford ||98,154||4,443||4.53%||1,099||1.12%||512||0.52%||41||0.04%

|Upper Bann ||122,038||13,153||10.78%||3,962||3.25%||2,320||1.90%||184||0.15%

|West Tyrone ||99,752||17,501||17.54%||5,284||5.30%||3,100||3.11%||339||0.34%

The ULTACH Trust (Iontaobhas ULTACH) was established in 1989 by Irish language enthusiasts to attract funding from the British Government for language projects and to broaden the appeal of the language on a cross-community basis (among both Protestants and Catholics)

The Shaw's Road Gaeltacht was joined in 2002 by the Gaeltacht Quarter in west Belfast.

Wards with highest percentage of Irish speakers and users

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Top 10 wards by highest percentage of some ability in Irish (2021)

! Ward!! Percentage having some ability in Irish

| Termon|| 43.00%

| Washing Bay|| 39.35%

| Swatragh|| 36.53%

| Falls Park|| 34.73%

| Andersontown|| 34.22%

| Lower Glenshane|| 33.11%

| Mullaghbane|| 32.46%

| Shaw's Road|| 32.17%

| Crossmaglen|| 31.70%

| Stewartstown|| 31.59%

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Top 10 wards reporting highest daily usage of Irish (2021)

! Ward !! Percentage who use Irish on a daily basis

| Andersontown|| 12.41%

| Falls Park|| 12.25%

| Shaw's Road|| 12.18%

| Termon|| 11.84%

| Turf Lodge|| 11.79%

| Colin Glen|| 11.28%

| Washing Bay|| 10.91%

| Stewartstown || 10.68%

| Ballymurphy|| 10.67%

| Swatragh|| 10.24%

Citizenship services

The lack of provision for legal and citizenship services in the Irish language, including for the Life in the United Kingdom test, has been met with criticism from the Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, of which the UK has ratified for the Cornish language, the Irish language, Manx Gaelic, the Scots & Ulster Scots dialects, Scottish Gaelic and the Welsh language. In a 2014 report detailing the application of the charter in the UK, the committee were given no justification for the inequality in the treatment of Irish speakers in contrast to that of English, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh speakers, and that efforts to rectify the inequality were non-existent.

Education

thumb|Sign of an Irish medium school in [[Newry]]

Six families in Belfast established a Gaeltacht area in Belfast in the late 1960s and opened Bunscoil Phobal Feirste in 1970 as the first Irish-medium school in Northern Ireland, and in 1984 was granted the status of a voluntary maintained primary school. The first Naíscoil (Irish-medium nursery school) opened in 1978. Not long after the opening of Bunscoil Phobal Feirste, a second all-Irish primary school opened, Gaelscoil na bhFál, situated on the Falls Road. Founded by the parents of children that wanted Irish education but couldn't find a space in 'BPF', one of the parents, named Sue Pentel, played a major role in the making of the school and about two years after the opening of Gaelscoil na bhFál, a daycare service, Ionad Uíbh Eachach, was opened and founded and managed by Sue Pentel. The school and daycare both provide services through the Irish language and work together in the way that many of the children that attended Ionad Uíbh Eachach then go on to attend nursery- Primary 7 (Naí ionad- R7) in Gaelscoil na bhFál. This is a very valuable connection that not that many schools have and what with the Ionad providing after-school care it is both convenient for the school and parents.

Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (CnaG) is the representative body for Irish-medium Education. It was set up in 2000 by the Department of Education to promote, facilitate and encourage Irish-medium Education. One of CnaG's central objectives is to seek to extend the availability of Irish-medium Education to parents who wish to avail of it for their children. Irish language pre-schools and primary schools are now thriving and there are official Irish language streams in secondary schools in Maghera, Donaghmore, Castlewellan and Armagh.

In December 2014 Minister for Education for Northern Ireland John O'Dowd announced that the Department of Education were going to set up Northern Ireland's second gaelcholáiste in Dungiven Castle in County Londonderry. Gaelcholáiste Dhoire opened in September 2015.

In the academic year 2018/19, over 6,000 children are enrolled in Irish-medium education:

43 nurseries (Naíscoileanna) with over 1,000 pupils
35 primary schools (Bunscoileanna) with over 3,000 pupils
2 second level gaelscoileanna (Gaelcholáiste) with over 800 pupils
3 Irish language streams (Sruith Lán-Ghaeilge)

The British Council administers a scheme to recruit Irish language assistants for English-medium schools in Northern Ireland.

In 2013, there were 309 entries for A-Level examinations in Irish and 2,078 for GCSE.

Media

thumb|Areas in [[Northern Ireland in which more than one third of the local population can speak Irish, according to the 2001 Census.]]

BBC Radio Ulster began broadcasting a nightly half-hour programme, called Blas ('taste'), in Irish in the early 1980s, and there is now an Irish-language programme on the station every day. BBC Northern Ireland broadcast its first television programme in Irish in the early 1990s, SRL ('etc.'). In March 2005, TG4 began broadcasting from the Divis transmitter near Belfast, as a result of agreement between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Northern Ireland Office. Following Digital Switchover for terrestrial television transmissions in both parts of Ireland in 2012, TG4 is now carried on Freeview HD for viewers in Northern Ireland (channel 51) as well as to those households in Border areas that have spillover reception of the ROI Saorview platform (channel 104). TG4 also continues to be available on other TV delivery platforms across Northern Ireland: Sky (channel 163) and Virgin Cable customers in Belfast (channel 877).

RTÉ's Irish-language radio station, RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta based in the Republic of Ireland is also available in many areas in Northern Ireland. Raidió Fáilte a community radio station based in West Belfast covers the Greater Belfast area and started broadcasting in 2006 and broadcasts 24 hours per day seven days per week. It broadcasts a selection of programmes; music, chat, news, current affairs, sports, arts, literature, environmental and community issues. It is also available worldwide on the internet at RaidióFáilte.com.

Residents of Northern Ireland have access to web based media in Irish such as online newspaper Tuairisc.ie or online lifestyle magazine Nós. An Irish-language daily newspaper called Lá Nua ("new day") folded in 2008 due to lack of funding.

The Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission administers an Irish Language Broadcast Fund (announced by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in April 2004) to foster and develop an independent Irish-language television production sector in Northern Ireland. The European Commission authorised public funding for the fund in June 2005 considering that "since the aid aims to promote cultural products and the Irish Language, it can be authorised under EU Treaty rules that allow state aids for the promotion of culture".

Political aspects

The Irish language in Northern Ireland has long been associated with identity. Prior to the turn of the 20th century, the Irish language was embraced by both sides of the community, although in decline. But the partition of Ireland in 1921 was a turning point in attitudes towards the language. The Irish language became a significant marker of identity they now needed as a minority group.

During The Troubles, the Irish language revival became increasingly politicised. Its survival is sometimes described as largely due to families in the nationalist Shaw's Road neighborhood of west Belfast, who during the 1960s decided to make the area a neo-Gaeltacht (a new Irish speaking area outside the traditional Gaeltachtaí). The result was a neighborhood now known as the Gaeltacht Quarter, which has become a centre for Modern literature in Irish. Issues around the use of the Irish language were intensified when a unionist MLA was accused of mocking Irish in the Northern Irish Assembly. In November 2014, in response to a question about minority language policy the DUP's Gregory Campbell said "Curry my yoghurt can coca coalyer" in what was meant to sound like "Thank you, speaker" in Irish which he later claimed was in an attempt to make a point about the continued political use of the language by some Sinn Féin MLAs in post 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

In recent years, cross-community efforts have attempted to make the Irish language more appealing to both sides of the community. Many local councils now use Irish bilingually with English (sometimes with Ulster Scots too) on many of its services in an attempt to neutralise the language. Some former loyalist prisoners such as Robin Stewart have even taken up learning the Irish language in east Belfast in an attempt to reclaim Irish identity and challenge Republicans about their version of Irish history and what it means to be Irish. The former Red Hand Commando prisoner William Smith learnt the language whilst in jail. The motto of the Red Hand Commando was the Irish phrase Lámh Dearg Abú which translated means 'Red Hand to Victory'. Linda Ervine, the sister-in-law of former Ulster Volunteer Force paramilitary and politician David Ervine, began learning the language and set up the Turas Irish-Language Project in the predominately Unionist East Belfast area for others to learn the language in 2011.

In popular culture

The 2024 biopic film Kneecap, in which the actual band members play themselves alongside more experienced actors including Michael Fassbender, Josie Walker, and Simone Kirby, is set in the Gaeltacht Quarter in 2019. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2024, the first motion picture in the Irish language to do so.

References

External links

List of Irish-medium schools in Northern Ireland
Foras na Gaeilge
Ultach Trust
Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta
BBC Northern Ireland Irish language
In the trenches of a language war